Japan Copper Electric Wire Shipment Drops by 0.3% in January

Japanese copper electric wire shipment decreased by 0.3% to 67,200 tonnes in copper volume in January from a year earlier, according to report of 135 members of Japanese Electric Wire & Cable Makers’ Association announced on Monday. The shipment decreased slightly when higher volume for automobile and power generation industry covered drop for construction. The shipment of optical fiber products increased by 22.5% to 2.517 million kilometers core in fiber length.

The shipment for construction industry decreased for 5 months in a row through January compared with a year earlier level. The shipment decreased by 7.8% to 10,524 tonnes for major electric construction companies and by 7.1% to 21,006 tonnes for distributors in December from a year earlier.

The shipment for distributors decreased in every month since August 2007 compared with a year earlier level. The demand is still low level when the dealers are reluctant to have excess inventory under uncertainty for copper ingot price and the actual demand is still low level with very slow housing activity. The construction demand is expected to increase when Sharp Corporation starts to use electric wire for the new building work for Sakai plant in Osaka.

The shipment for automobile increased for 5 months in a row since September compared with a year earlier level. The shipment hit record for 3 months in a row through November and the shipment increased by near 1,000 tonnes in January from a year earlier and 2 years ago level. The shipment for power generation industry recovered 6,000 tonnes level in January.

The shipment for optical fiber products increased by 16.7% to 713,350 km core in December from a year earlier. The export increased to 1.5 times at 1.803 million km core while the shipment for domestic market decreased for 12 months in a row.

See attached table.